The present invention relates to a cavity forming agent, particularly for application to the making of bread, cakes and other cavity foods suitable for filling. The agent prevents softening of bread dough by forming uniform cavities and films for preventing the transfer of water and oil thereto on filling.
Conventionally, pocket bread, English muffin bread, hot dogs buns, bread for sandwiches and various other kinds of bread have been used for cooking. Apart from pocket bread, they however, these types of bread require cutting when a filling is inserted. If the filling has a high water content, it penetrates the bread, softening it, and causes faults such as deterioration of the taste when the bread is left for a long time. In order to prevent this, butter or margarine is applied to the inside of the bread. Pocket bread has a space called a pocket for filling. However, such bread takes a number of hours to make and, if the filling has a high water content, much the same problem as described above arises.
Several methods are known for making cavity bread that reduces the transfer of water and oil by solving the above problem, including baking flattened bread dough during fermentation (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 145242/1979), and making cavity bread by wrapping an air-containing material such as marshmallow in bread dough before baking (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 68337/1981).
However, bread with good cavities has never been obtained using conventional techniques. When the former method is used, uniform cavities cannot be obtained, and the bread dough itself forms cavity surfaces. This causes the transfer of water inside (called "crumb part" hereinafter) softening the bread and impairing the taste. The latter method was the disadvantage of requiring an extra equipment and a separate process for separately making the air-containing material. Moreover, when marshmallow is used, since it contains sugar, its taste may not match that of the filling.
Thus, bread with the cavities obtained using conventional techniques does not have uniform cavities and cannot be used for other than specific kinds of filling.
The inventors previously published a method of making cavity bread for solving such problems (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 42837/1984).
This method has solved the problems of conventional techniques. However, since proteins are used in large amounts, hard films form, affecting the taste of the bread. Furthermore, upon filling, the transfer of water to the crumb part cannot be prevented.
The invention was developed to solve these problems. It is intended to provide a cavity forming agent which, when used to make bread, cakes and other such foods, forms uniform cavities and prevents the transfer of water and oil to the crumb part on filling, enabling the use of various fillings.